MediaMain

-- Main.AdrianBowyer - 23 Feb 2006

RepRap and the Fourth Estate

Press articles

• The Bath University press release.

• The project featured in the BBC Radio 4 series Designs on Nature broadcast on Wednesday 16 March 2005.

• Article in Live Science.

• RepRap on Slashdot.

• RepRap on Vnunet.

• RepRap on prw.com.

• Article in New Scientist.

• Interview at Non-Tech City.

• Article in The Scotsman.

• Article at Spacedaily News.

• Article in Materials World.

• Item on WorldChanging.

• Sceptical view of RepRap by Wohlers Associates, Inc.

• Item at Responsible Nanotechnology (note that RepRap is not itself nanotechnology).

• Interview at The Speculist.

• Links at Makezine and reBang.

• Short piece at BoingBoing.

• RepRap on CNN.

• Article in The Guardian.

• RP goes Open Source: article in MCAD Magazine (pages 60 - 61).

• Online piece by David Pescovitz at salon.com.

• Printcrime a short story about RepRap by Cory Doctorow, originally published in Nature on 12 January 2006.

• The Free Range by Robert LaMarca - article in the March 2006 issue of Mechanical Engineering Magazine.

• [tt_news=661 Article in Industrie Magazin] (in German).

• Article reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2006. "3D Printers Reshape World of Copying", William M. Bulkeley

• And finally, for our younger and more impressionable readers, there's: The Register...

Why I put out a press release at the start of the project

Some researchers get a research grant and the next day put out a press release saying how their improved mousetrap is going to change the world. It almost invariably doesn't.

This is not something I (AB) would normally do; I like to finish a project, publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal, then tell everyone. Smug, or what? But that way I only look like the idiot I am, as opposed to a flash showman with no substance, as well as an idiot.

However - as the RepRap project has the potential to make a significant impact on society worldwide - it seemed to me that the only moral course when I started it was to put out a press release. You might reasonably ask why, given that potential impact, I didn't start a debate and only proceed with the project if the consensus was favourable. The answer is that that would only make sense if the project was something needing gargantuan resources like building a nuclear power station. That sort of project is tolerably easy to control and restrain. RepRap isn't like that: once the idea is out there, anyone with a workshop and a modest amount of cash can do it. So it would not be possible to stop the thing, even if the debate went against it. As RepRap seemed to me on balance to be good, my only rational course was to tell people and see what happened.

If it all goes Horribly Wrong, it's my fault...

Anyway, the press picked up the release with the articles above. The publicity also had the wonderful effect of bringing on board the group of tireless and selfless volunteers you see on the project's People Page.

AdrianBowyer